Blog » The Christ Hymn
Monday, June 24, 2013 Nick Cirino
Some scholars guess that Philippians 2:6-11 was an early church hymn that Paul was quoting. We can’t be sure if it was or not—but if it was a song, what a beautiful song! I would love to hear these lyrics set to music someday.
Moisés Silva in his commentary on Philippians makes a translation where he tries to preserve the poem-like rhythm of the passage. I wanted to share it with you:
Who in the form of God existing
Not an advantage considered
His being equal with God
But nothing he made himself
The form of a servant adopting
In likeness of men becoming
And in appearance being found as man
He humbled himself
Becoming obedient to death—
And death of a cross
Therefore also exalted him God
And granted him the name
That’s above ev’ry name
So that in the name of Jesus
Ev’ry knee may bow of those in heav’n
And on earth and under the earth
And every tongue may confess
That Jesus Christ is Lord
To God the Father’s glory
From: Philippians,2nd edition, Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament (Baker: Grand Rapids, 2005), 93-94. For More: Follow on Twitter @jefflampl
Silva? Or Yoda?
ReplyDeleteHaha!
DeleteI thought the explanation/commentary/translation given by Nick Cirino in his message was very helpful and I see Silva uses the key word here. The translation I've always seen is that Jesus didn't consider equality with God as something to be grasped. That never made complete sense to me because He already is God. So I took it as an admonition to me to stop striving to be equal to God. And that's probably good to keep in mind. But Nick's point was that Jesus didn't take His equality with God as something to be used to His advantage. Instead He used it to our advantage. Taking both together this says to me to stop trying to be #1, but use whatever advantage I have to the advantage of others.
ReplyDeleteBob R